The High Line in NYC

This is a great, short explanation about the High Line in New York City.
Robert Hammond: Building a park in the sky

Tom Petty to Michele Bachmann: Stop Playing My Song

Tom Petty has asked presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann to stop using his song “American Girl” in her campaign. He “has reportedly issued a cease-and-desist letter to the conservative's camp” according to press reports.

Read the article here.


Dear Ms. Bachmann,

I understand you may be looking for some new music for your campaign. Here are some suggestions you may wish to consider:

Crazy – Patsy Cline
Crazy – Willie Nelson’s version (he originally wrote it)
Crazy Train – Ozzy Osbourne
Let’s Go Crazy – Prince
(Not) “Takin’ Care of Business” Bachman Turner Overdrive
U Don’t Know – Jay-Z
Don’t Know Nothing – Maroon 5
Runaway - The National
Go Away – Roy Orbison
The Longest Day – in honor of (the real) John Wayne

Sincerely,

Jerome Rossen

Customized Music Helps Ongo Hit the Right Notes

Freshmade Music produced the audio for the “About Ongo” video, a fun, fast-paced animation created by veteran animator Tom Westerlin and his team of artists. I (Jerome) wrote and performed the music, then brought audio engineer Jim Lively aboard to add his magic with sound design and mixing.

Upon first listen, you’ll notice that the music isn’t particularly complicated, however I adjust the music’s role to actively support the story when necessary, or lay it in the background to set a mood.

The music track consists of three pieces – the outer space theme at the beginning, the second piece, the one that builds in tension to support the story, then the third happy “Ongo” theme. While it would be possible to provide a soundtrack for a spot like this with library music, I think that having a score unique to the action of the video serves the overall story much better. The area that is most noticeable is the 2nd piece of music (starting in a major key at around 0:04). As the “chaos” enters, the music shifts to minor at 0:12, then there’s a big transition at around 0:30. Having the ability to compose a piece just for this section allowed me to get the right amount of tension in the story at just the right time.

Another feature that you just wouldn’t get with library music – the ending is musically scored to picture. Also, the sound design contains a good portion of musical sound design, often cymbal hits or bells.

Walking Instructions

Last Night at the Big Top

After I finished college, I wanted to move to New York to become a rock star, so I needed a job that would help me put a little money in the bank. I ended up working on a cruise ship that did a couple of different routes in the Caribbean. Among one of the many characters that I met was a drummer named Jim. He was a nice guy, and really normal compared to most of the other cruise ship ilk. In my first couple of days aboard, he asked how everything was going, and I told him that I thought that this must be what a circus is like. He had sort of a funny look on his face and raised an eyebrow, and said, “Well, sort of.” And he proceeded to tell me about the circus that HE had played, the sort that is called a “Mud Show”. They’re called Mud Shows because they generally set up at the edge of a town in the dirt. And they don’t have the luxury of canceling due to rain. So if it’s been raining, and the dirt is wet, on with the Mud Show. Jim’s general sense was that the cruise ship thing was pretty normal – but if you want to meet some REALLY CRAZY characters, then you should work in a Mud Show. He had a theory that Mud Shows were the perfect place if you ever needed to placed in the witness protection program. You travel around a lot from town to town and you’re probably not going to run into anyone you know. In any case, the circus performers need to say goodbye to the town when the end of their run is over. That’s the Last Night At The Big Top.

What genre is your music? What music styles do you write?

Yes! Well, sort of. I’m comfortable writing in any genre, with the caveat that my music is going to have my own personal “filter” on it.

My instrument is piano, and my training is in Jazz. That said, I’ve written and recorded lots of other styles, like guitar-driven surf music, disco and classical.

I create the music for a funny and very violent (did I mention funny?) cartoon called "The Happy Tree Friends" a project I've worked on since 2005. This requires me to write in numerous styles, sometimes in the course of 1 episode.

The Gear I Use To Compose Music For The Happy Tree Friends

I’d like to explain a little bit more about the gear that I use – and I mean the instruments and software I actually use (though I’m always in the market for another Music Maker XT4 if you can find me one). I’m including some technical music and technical pro-audio information, in case anyone is interested.

One of my most important tools is my metronome. Since the music accompanies whatever action is on screen, the timing of the music is critical. When I compose for the Happy Tree Friends, I isolate one small section of video where the music will remain the same – it could be a 10 second portion or less, or more. I watch the video while playing a keyboard-controller-piano-thing that’s in front of my computer monitor. I either play along with the picture, or more likely hum along with what’s happening. It's probably not too pretty to watch. Once I hum a theme or decide on a feel for that section, I check what I’m humming against the metronome, and find the closest tempo in the audio software that I’m using. Very often, my music will need to adapt slightly slower or faster, and the actual metronome marking will be something like 123.45 bpm rather than 120 bpm. Thankfully, I can use the audio software to help me line up the music to picture. In the old days, I’m told that composers had to understand math and even actually cut and splice the recording tape they were using. I'll consider myself lucky that I didn't have to hone those skills!

So if you really want to geek out: for audio software, I’m currently composing in DP; and recording audio into ProTools HD. There are many other great pieces of software out there - these happen to be the ones I use right now.

Here is a partial list of some of the sounds I use. I plan to talk about orchestration and choosing instruments in a separate post. I use a bunch of current sound libraries for orchestral, jazz, world, drum and piano sounds, including Vienna Symphonic, Sonic Implants, East West, Garritan, and a handful of others.

I’m excited and generally inspired to have some great audio software and wonderful sound libraries to use with them. But those great tools are merely that – tools to help me compose. The actual composition happens with me sitting at the piano, or sometimes the “piano”. My goal is always to be so proficient with the tools that I’m working with, that the technology will “get out of the way”. It’s tempting to get lost in computer-land, sifting through sound libraries, or exploring the intricacies of software plug-ins, but when I’m composing, my focus needs to be on making actual music. Of course, that doesn’t mean that someone necessarily needs all (or any of) this technology to create great stuff. I’ve heard some wonderful music made on some pretty primitive homemade instruments.